Lacquer pen-case, signed by the artist Ashraf ibn Riza

From Iran
AD 1863-4

This luxury pen-case is made from papier mâché with lacquer
painting. Painted butterflies and birds populate the dark green
leaves and red and pink flowers, against a cream background. A
pen-case would contain reed pens, an inkwell, a pen-knife for
cutting a fresh pen-nib, a whetstone to sharpen the knife and
scissors to trim paper-edges.

The surface of a papier mâché object is prepared for lacquer
painting with a coat of fine gesso or plaster. The decoration is
then painted on in watercolours, and sometimes also gilt. Finally,
a glossy layer of transparent or slightly golden varnish covers the
surface. This is known as 'lacquer' because of its appearance, but
it is not true lacquer, produced from tree sap in China.

Painted and varnished wood had been used in Iran since the
thirteenth century for luxury household items and decoration of
interiors, but the arrival of true lacquer items from China
prompted craftsmen to produce imitations. Early examples of Iranian
'lacquer' imitated both the palette and the decorative motifs of
Chinese qianjin black lacquer sutra boxes. When a
new polychrome style of lacquer decoration arrived from China in
the late fifteenth century, Iranian lacquer craftsmen also began to
paint in a wider range of colours.

Lacquer had first been used to decorate bookbindings, but from
the later Safavid period (seventeenth century) onwards, the use of
lacquer broadened from bookbindings to papier mâché mirror-cases,
pen boxes, jewellery boxes and even playing cards. Closely-packed
birds and flowers were a popular motif. Other popular courtly
themes were parties, court assemblies, hunts and battles.